Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/160

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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. x. AUG. 22, wu.

then Charles Abbot, was Speaker of the House of Commons at the time of the Peninsular War, and the entry in his Diary is as follows :

" 1810, Feb. 9. Canning and Hutchinson drank tea in my room. It appears that Lord Wellington's peerage was conferred at [his brother] Wellesley Pole's instance without Sir Arthur Wellesley 's wishes \ being known either as to the peerage or the title."

Talavera had been fought in July, 1809, and Sir Arthur Wellesley was raised to the peerage in the following month as Viscount Wellington of Talavera. In 1813 the Duke acquired possession of the manor of Wel- lington at a cost of 22,500Z., and in 1814, when the Peninsular War was over, he visited the town and had a public reception. Strathfieldsaye was not purchased till three years later, at a cost of over a quarter of a million. MEDIOTEMPLARIUS.

EPITAPH : "I WAS WELL, I WOULD BE BETTER; I AM HERE" (11 S. vi. 469). -The original, subject, and place of the above " of ten- quoted epitaph of an Italian tomb " were asked for. I would suggest that the original, as long as it is riot forthcoming from another source, might be reconstructed from what would seem to be an adaptation of the epitaph by Horace Walpole : '

" In short, he and the Scotch have no way of redeeming the credit of their understandings, but by avowing that they have been consummate villains. ' Stavano bene ; per star meglio, stanno qul.' " Walpole to the Rev. William Mason, Aug. 2 [6 ?], 1778: No. 1888 in Mrs. Toynbee's edition.

EDWARD BENSI.Y.

Reydon. Southwold, Suffolk.

CAIRNS FAMILY (11 S. x. 88). In the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' which should be in all good Colonial * libraries, there are four biographies (Cairnes 2. Cairns 2) that may be helpfxil. H. Cairnes Lawlor's ' History of the Family of Cairnes or Cairns,' 1906, is a valuable work on the subject, and there are the old references : Shirley's ' History of the County of Monaghan,' p. 216 ; O'Hart's ' Irish Pedigrees,' 2nd Ser., p. 146 ; Wotton's ' English Baronetage,' vol. iv. p. 130; and Burke's 'Extinct Baronetcies.' These authorities deal mainly with the north of Ii eland and the south-west of Scotland, ignoring the Cairns family located at Dun- blane, Bridge-of-Allan, Edinburgh, &c. One of my grandmothers was Isabella Cairns from Bridge-of-Allan, and her view was that only in the east were to be found the pure Caimses free from any suspicion of Celtic Kearns taint. She was a wise woman, and

it was not for me to teach her how to svick pedigree eggs. The ' Registers of Testa- ments ' of the various Commissariot Records published by the Scottish Record Society would afford C. C. much useful guidance to Cairns wills. A. T. W.

SCHUBERT QUERIES (11 S. x. 89). The song ' Ave Maria ' was published with the title " Ellen's Gesang. Hymne an die Jung- frau aus Walter Scott." The German translation was by Ad. Storck.

The following account of ' The Wanderer ' is to be found in Coleridge's ' Life of Schu- bert,' translated from the German of Kreissle von Hellborn :

" A clergyman in Vienna, of the name of Horni, drew Schubert's attention to the poem of Georg Filipp Schmidt, of Lubeck (born 1766, died 1849). Horni probably found it in a volume called ' Dichtungen fur Kunstredner,' published by Deinharstein in the year 1815, where it is marked as ' Der Ungliickliche,' by Werner. Schubert has consequently written on the original ' by Zacharias Werner.' "

The original manuscript of the music still exists, with Schubert's endorsement, " October, 1816."

WILLIAM H. CUMMINGS.

1. The publisher of the original edition of Schubert's ' Ave Maria ' had English and German words printed. But as Adolf Storck's German translation of Walter Scott's poem used by Schubert did not adhere closely to the English verse measure, the result was unsatisfactory, as may be seen in the Litolff edition, vol. iii., in which both German version and the original Scott poem are given.

2. The " Schmidt von Lubeck " was Georg Philipp Schmidt, born at Lubeck in 1766. His poems, and probably amongst them ' Der Wanderer,' were collected (some ap- peared first in newspapers) and published by his friend Prof. H. Ch. Schumacher in 1821. A third edition was brought out by the poet himself in 1847. Schmidt died at Altona in 1849. J. S. S.

The words of Schubert's ' Ave Maria ' are supposed to be a translation of Ellen's hymn in Sir Walter Scott's ' Lady of the Lake.'

Schmidt of Lubeck was Georg Philipp Schmidt (1766-1849), whose 'Lieder' were edited by Prof. Schumacher in 1821.

L. L. K.

THE BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIA- MENT (11 S. x. 67). The parody referred to was written by the Rev. R. H. Barham, and will be found in his Life by his son, vol. ii.